Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes | Page 4

to be for popular, rather
than for scientific use. In short, the direction to submit a
progress-report and not a monograph has been complied with.

DIVISIONS OF GESTURE SPEECH.
These are corporeal motion and facial expression. An attempt has been
made by some writers to discuss these general divisions separately, and
its success would be practically convenient if it were always
understood that their connection is so intimate that they can never be
altogether severed. A play of feature, whether instinctive or voluntary,
accentuates and qualifies all motions intended to serve as signs, and
strong instinctive facial expression is generally accompanied by action
of the body or some of its members. But, so far as a distinction can be
made, expressions of the features are the result of emotional, and
corporeal gestures, of intellectual action. The former in general and the
small number of the latter that are distinctively emotional are nearly
identical among men from physiological causes which do not affect
with the same similarity the processes of thought. The large number of
corporeal gestures expressing intellectual operations require and admit
of more variety and conventionality. Thus the features and the body
among all mankind act almost uniformly in exhibiting fear, grief,
surprise, and shame, but all objective conceptions are varied and
variously portrayed. Even such simple indications as those for "no" and
"yes" appear in several differing motions. While, therefore, the terms
sign language and gesture speech necessarily include and suppose
facial expression when emotions are in question, they refer more
particularly to corporeal motions and attitudes. For this reason much of
the valuable contribution of DARWIN in his Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals is not directly applicable to sign
language. His analysis of emotional gestures into those explained on
the principles of serviceable associated habits, of antithesis, and of the
constitution of the nervous system, should, nevertheless, always be
remembered. Even if it does not strictly embrace the class of gestures
which form the subject of this paper, and which often have an
immediate pantomimic origin, the earliest gestures were doubtless
instinctive and generally emotional, preceding pictorial, metaphoric,
and, still subsequent, conventional gestures even, as, according to
DARWIN's cogent reasoning, they preceded articulate speech.

While the distinction above made between the realm of facial play and
that of motions of the body, especially those of the arms and hands, is
sufficiently correct for use in discussion, it must be admitted that the
features do express intellect as well as emotion. The well-known saying
of Charles Lamb that "jokes came in with the candles" is in point, but
the most remarkable example of conveying detailed information
without the use of sounds, hands, or arms, is given by the late President
T.H. Gallaudet, the distinguished instructor of deaf-mutes, which, to be
intelligible, requires to be quoted at length:
"One day, our distinguished and lamented historical painter, Col. John
Trumbull, was in my school-room during the hours of instruction, and,
on my alluding to the tact which the pupil referred to had of reading my
face, he expressed a wish to see it tried. I requested him to select any
event in Greek, Roman, English, or American history of a scenic
character, which would make a striking picture on canvas, and said I
would endeavor to communicate it to the lad. 'Tell him,' said he, 'that
Brutus (Lucius Junius) condemned his two sons to death for resisting
his authority and violating his orders.'
"I folded my arms in front of me, and kept them in that position, to
preclude the possibility of making any signs or gestures, or of spelling
any words on my fingers, and proceeded, as best I could, by the
expression of my countenance, and a few motions of my head and
attitudes of the body, to convey the picture in my own mind to the mind
of my pupil.
"It ought to be stated that he was already acquainted with the fact,
being familiar with the leading events in Roman history. But when I
began, he knew not from what portion of history, sacred or profane,
ancient or modern, the fact was selected. From this wide range, my
delineation on the one hand and his ingenuity on the other had to bring
it within the division of Roman history, and, still more minutely, to the
particular individual and transaction designated by Colonel Trumbull.
In carrying on the process, I made no use whatever of any arbitrary,
conventional look, motion, or attitude, before settled between us, by
which to let him understand what I wished to communicate, with the

exception of a single one, if, indeed, it ought to be considered such.
"The usual sign, at that time, among the teachers and pupils, for a
Roman, was portraying an aquiline nose by placing the forefinger,
crooked, in